by Karin Fossum
"What an amateur! It wasn't runny because it was preserved. And then it has the consistency of a mushroom and they can cut it into thin slices. I saw that on TV."
"What does preserved mean?" Simon asked.
"Hardened," said Karsten. "They put it in something that makes it harden. But they won't have to do that with Kannick's brain – his was hardened long ago."
"Cut that out! Let Kannick finish."
This time it was Philip who interrupted. If those two started arguing they'd never stop. And Margunn could show up at any minute. Not that she really believed that her ban on talking about the murder would be upheld; she knew better than that. The question was how much time they now had. And how many details they could glean.
Kannick waited with the patience of a preacher, frowning at the bounty lying before him. He decided to start with the Mocca beans.
"Her body had already begun to rot," he went on, putting extra emphasis on the word rot.
"What did you say?" Karsten snorted. "Give me a break! It happens to take several days for a body to start rotting. If Errki hadn't even managed to leave the scene, you can't tell me that –"
"Do you know how hot it was up in the woods?" Kannick leaned forward and his voice quivered with indignation. "It rots in a matter of minutes in that heat."
"You haven't got a clue. I'm going to ask the police about that if they ever come here. But I guess you're not very important, Kannick, or they would have been here long ago."
"Officer Gurvin promised that they would come."
"We'll see about that, but cut out the stuff about rotting, because we don't believe you. I paid for the truth."
"Fine! I can skip over the worst parts. We've got children here, after all. But going back to the hoe –"
"What kind of hoe was it?" Philip again.
"The kind you use to work the soil. To dig up potatoes and weeds. It looked like an axe with a longer shaft. In point of fact it might as well have been an axe because her head was just about split in two. And her eye had come loose and was hanging down her cheek from a single thread, and –"
Karsten rolled his eyes. "You've been watching too many videos. Tell us about Errki," he said.
"Who's Errki?" Simon asked. He was from a different town and hadn't been there long.
"The terror of the woods," Karsten sneered, picking at one of his pimples. "He's bound to get off. He always gets off. Besides, he's a real nutcase, and crazy people are never convicted. They sit in the asylum swallowing pills, and then they get out and go right on killing. If they put him in a strait-jacket he'd go on killing with his bare teeth."
"Is he going to get out?" said Simon anxiously.
"He is out, you dope. They haven't found him yet."
"Where is he?"
"Up there in the woods."
Simon cast a frightened glance out of the window, up towards the trees.
"Errki may be insane, but insane is not the same as stupid," Kannick said thoughtfully. "He noticed that I saw him. Maybe he's going to come after me. I really should have police protection."
He scowled at them with a worried look on his face, to see whether this piece of information had sunk in properly, whether they grasped what it meant to have such a threat hanging over him. A vengeful madman on his heels. It couldn't get any worse.
"Ha. He's probably long gone. Like you said, he's not stupid. What did he look like?" Karsten wanted to know. "Did he have any blood on him?"
"He was standing behind a tree," Kannick said in a low voice. "He was standing in a funny way, with his arms hanging at his sides, staring straight ahead. He has such peculiar eyes. My uncle has Greenland dogs, and Errki has the same kind of eyes as those dogs. Sort of whitish, like a dead fish."
He thought back to that fateful moment when he stood in Halldis's yard with his heart pounding and stared in terror up at the woods, at the black trees, and suddenly caught sight of that strange figure among the trunks. Motionless at first, but then it moved, and something dark slowly leaned forward, and only then did he realise that it was a face. A face in shadow with staring eyes. The devil himself couldn't have scared Kannick more. He ran like a hare down the road, knowing he should let go of his suitcase containing the bow and arrows, but he couldn't. He kept on running and didn't look back.
"Has he killed anyone before?" Jaffa wanted to know.
Kannick shifted his body from its lotus position and stretched his stiff legs. "First his own mother. And then the old man up by the church," he said brightly. "And they still let him walk around freely. It's rotten to put a place like this," his eyes took in the room and the courtyard, "a building full of minors in an area where a mass murderer lives."
"You idiot," Karsten said. "This home was here first, long before Errki went nuts."
"But why isn't he kept locked up?" Simon said.
"He was. But he escaped. I expect he knocked out the night nurse and stole the keys."
Simon had been given far more to think about than he wanted. Very slowly he moved over to Karsten and leaned against him.
"Relax, Simon. There's a lock on the door," the older boy assured him. "Besides, Errki's the type that can never sit still. He wanders around. Hardly ever sleeps. Right now he'll be on his way to town to kill somebody else."
"Who?" Simon whimpered.
"Somebody chosen at random. He doesn't need to hate the person in order to kill them."
"But then why does he kill?"
"He has to. It's an inner urge."
Simon wanted to ask about this "inner urge", but lost his courage. Kannick picked up the box of Mocca beans and opened the lid, plucked out the little piece of cardboard on top, and then generously passed the box around. His new status overwhelmed him. No-one had ever sat still this long listening to him before. Everyone took a handful, and for a short time no-one spoke as they all munched on the beans.
Karsten was furious. He couldn't get over the fact that he wasn't the one who had found the body. That it had to be this idiot Kannick, that he had actually seen a dead person although he was two years younger and fat. Not one of the others had seen a corpse.
"Were her eyes open?" he asked.
Kannick chewed as he paused to think. "Wide open. Or at least the one that was still there."
Philip broke in. "I once heard about a girl who had a doll that came alive at night. Its fingernails started to grow. In the morning, when the girl woke up, she was blind. The doll had scratched out her eyes."
"We're not talking about a video!" Kannick shouted. "This is all real. The trouble with you is that you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. That's why you're here, but I'm sure you know that already." He closed his eyes to remember better. "Her eye had a terrified look, as if she'd seen the Devil himself."
"That's not so very far from the truth," Karsten said. "I wonder if he said anything to her before he did it. Or whether he just stormed towards her and cracked her in the head. Was she lying on the front doorstep?"
"Yes."
"With her head out on the steps or in the doorway?"
"Out on the steps."
"That means he must have been inside the house," said Karsten. "Looking for some chocolate, I should think."
"If he asked her for some, she would have given it to him."
"Errki doesn't ask for anything, he just takes it. Everybody knows that."
Suddenly they all gave a start. The door opened, and there stood Margunn.
"Don't you look snug!"
She stared at the little group of boys sitting in watchful silence, chewing on the chocolate. No-one was going to tell her that they didn't know how to create a cosy atmosphere, even in this soulless place. She knew what they were up to, but she was still proud of them.
"Who's telling stories?" she asked innocently.
The boys stared at the floor. Even Karsten fluttered his eyelashes.
"I'm going to treat all of you to a Coke," she said, and left.
Kannick was thin
king about that "inner urge" as his blood sugar slowly rose to an acceptable level and he felt the warm drowsiness come over him that only sweets could produce. He felt comfortably tired and just a little lethargic, as if he was intoxicated. In the intoxication he found peace. He didn't know from what, but he could never get enough of it.
"What's the betting we get a Diet Coke," he sighed as he tore open the Hubba Bubba packet. There was exactly enough gum for each of them. His generosity knew no bounds. The murder of Halldis had brought them together as never before. Usually they were a divisive group, everybody fighting one another, each boy struggling for his own pathetic position in this tiny society of outsiders. They had given up their dreams of the future, except for Simon, who was said to have a rich uncle who had hinted that Simon could come to live at his farm where he had 30 racehorses. But first he had to serve a four-month sentence for accounting irregularities, and he couldn't come and get the boy as long as he stood in the atonement line, as he put it. But soon they would make a new start together.
Margunn reappeared carrying, as predicted, some sugar-free Cokes and a tray of glasses.
"Don't spill it on the floor, boys."
She gave Kannick a warning glance. Margunn wasn't one to scold. They were her boys, and she was fond of them. Any attempt to reprimand fell flat, like a deflated balloon, and they all loved her because she was the only person in their lives who cared about them. There were others on the staff, such as Thorleif, Inga and Richard. And they were all right and did their jobs, but they were young and wanted to move on to something better. For them the boys were just a stretch of rugged terrain they had to traverse as fast as possible. Margunn, on the other hand, was old. She was almost 60 and had no ambition to move on. She had ended up here, in this ugly building covered with sheets of grey asbestos, with the smell of something green and close in all the rooms. And she liked it, the way people like the mouldy places in the back of the cellar because they never give up hope that one day they'll find something of value hidden among the junk. It was easy for the boys to sense that. Only Simon didn't draw his own conclusions. He asked the others and accepted the answers they gave him.
Karsten poured the Coke and sent the glasses around. Everyone's jaws were working at the gum. Kannick frowned down at the bedspread as he considered whether to share more of his loot or save the rest for bad days to come. This was a golden moment, and it might be a long time until the next one.
"Where is Halldis now?" Pålte asked after Margunn had left. His real name was Pål Theodor, and he was there by mistake, but no-one had realised it yet. Somewhere in his future adult life a formidable compensation payment of several million kroner for wrongful incarceration was waiting. That was what kept him going.
"In the corpse cellar," Kannick said, taking a gulp of his Coke. "In a freezer."
"Refrigerator," Karsten corrected him. "There will have to be an autopsy, of course, and if she's frozen, they won't be able to cut her open."
"Cut?" Simon's eyes grew dark with fear.
Karsten put his arm around the boy's shoulders. "When somebody dies, they're cut open. To find the cause of death."
"The cause of death was a hoe in her head," Philip remarked, with a belch.
"They have to find out precisely what it struck. They can't just guess."
"It hit her right in the eye."
"Yes, but they have to write up a death certificate. No-one can be buried without a death certificate. I wonder why he used a hoe?" Karsten said. "He could have killed her perfectly well with his bare hands."
"I guess he didn't feel like it at the time," Kannick replied, pursing his lips. Then he blew a big bubble that hid half his face before it finally popped and covered his nose and mouth. He scraped the gum together with his dirty fingers and put it back in his mouth.
"But the police are looking for him now, aren't they?" Simon was pulling on his earlobe, as if to calm himself down.
"Of course they are. They're on a manhunt with their guns loaded, I would imagine. And with bulletproof vests. I'm sure they'll get him."
Karsten tossed his head in annoyance. "The stupid thing is that they have to take him alive and unharmed."
He looked at them. This was something he knew all about. "It's better in the US. The police just shoot them dead, and show a lot more consideration for the community. I'm all for the death penalty!" he proclaimed.
And with this last comment, the meeting was over.
CHAPTER 8
The man who called himself Morgan was sitting on a little grassy mound. His gun lay at his side in the grass. Errki kept stealing glances at his Bermuda shorts covered with palm trees and fruit.
Morgan was trying to assess the situation. Things could be worse. He was out of the bank, out of the city, out of the car. And he had the money, just as he had promised. The car was hidden, and if this path wasn't used much, it could be days before it was discovered. They wouldn't find his fingerprints in the car, because he had never taken off his gloves. He wondered whether they had identified his hostage. Maybe the quality of the video surveillance in the bank would turn out to be poor.
"Listen here," he said in a low voice. The drum roll was more muted, Errki thought, he must have created a greater sense of order in his head. "You can at least answer this question."
He looked up at Errki, who was sitting on a tree stump with his knees pulled up. "Just tell me if you've escaped from somewhere. A home or something like that. Or whether you're on your own and have a flat, or you live with your mother. I'm curious. That's not too much to ask, is it?"
While he waited, he took a packet of tobacco out of his bag. Errki didn't reply. Nestor was about to take up his position, the one where he squatted down with his chin pressed to his knees and his hands linked around his legs. That was the position. When he sat like that, Errki was allowed to speak.
"I mean, have you run away from a hospital or something? Is anyone looking for you? Is there a search going on?"
The question made Errki wag his head back and forth.
"Let's make a deal," Morgan said. "I'll ask you a question. If you answer, you have the right to ask me one, which I have to answer if I want to ask you something else. How about that?"
Morgan felt quite proud of this suggestion as he looked at his hostage. In spite of the black leather jacket and dark trousers, he didn't look sweaty. That was odd. He, on the other hand, was drenched with sweat, and his sleeveless shirt had big dark patches.
"I'd just like to find out who you are," he added. "It's not that easy."
"A person can't see much when the Devil is holding the candle," Errki said.
He spoke in a weary voice, as if it cost him far too much energy to waste words on a poor man like Morgan.
Morgan started at the sound of Errki's voice. It was bright and pleasant-sounding, and he spoke with great solemnity. Errki tilted his head and listened intently to Nestor's whispering. The robber's suggestion sounded familiar. A game they used to play at the asylum. In group therapy.
"I'll start," he said.
Morgan smiled, relieved to hear such a normal remark.
"But the same applies to you, right? If I answer honestly, then I have the right to ask you a question and get a truthful reply."
Errki assented by meeting his glance.
"What are you going to do now?" he asked, and at the same moment he heard Nestor laughing shrilly down in the depths of the cellar.
Morgan frowned. He scowled at the black-clad figure and licked his lips.
What are you going to do now? That was an unexpected question. Well, he could just make something up, since this lunatic was barely capable of understanding the answer he gave him. But they weren't supposed to lie. And besides it seemed impossible to lie to those gleaming eyes. He realised that he felt terribly alone. He started to sweat even more. What are you going to do now? Damned if he knew. He was sitting here with a bag full of money and an imbecile he couldn't understand. He hesitated, then shrugged his s
houlders.
"I'm waiting for dark," he said.
Waiting for dark. Nestor curled his lips into what looked like a smile. Tell him, Errki! Make the man open his eyes.
"It's not going to get dark," said Errki. "It's midsummer."
"I'm not stupid," Morgan snapped back.
Oh yes, he is, Nestor chuckled, rocking back and forth like a devil-may-care old woman.
"Between midnight and two in the morning it will be twilight. Then we'll see what happens," Morgan said.
The voice sounded threatening again, and the drums were once more off tempo.
"Now it's my turn. What's wrong with you?"
Errki spread his fingers. This was what disgusted Morgan. If it hadn't been for the way he splayed his fingers and the nasty way he rocked his head, he would have been bearable.
An honest answer, Errki thought. What's wrong with me? A shudder rushed through and stirred up the grey cellar dust. Nestor snarled gruffly. What's wrong with me? He looked down. A blood-red spot appeared in the grass, right at his feet. It started rising, slowly getting bigger. If he moved his foot a centimetre, the blood would touch his trainers.
"Well? Are you going to answer?" Morgan gave him a sullen look. "We had an agreement. What's wrong with you? An honest answer. Come on."
Errki sat as if frozen solid, staring down at his trainers.
"OK, I'm going to be nice, unlike you, since you're a little strange. I'll ask you another question. But if you don't give me a proper answer this time, I'm going to get angry."
He stared hard at Errki to emphasise how serious he was. "You moved so damned fast up this slope. I've never seen anything like it. Do you know this area?"
"Yes," Errki said, raising his head. He was careful not to move his feet.
Morgan was excited. "Do you know it well? Then maybe you know a place where we could sit and wait for dark? Or maybe we should build ourselves a shelter out of branches, what do you think?"
